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Ringing In The New Year


jparrott

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And how are we ushering in 2006? Here, it's oyster stew and ham biscuits at cocktail hour, then a late supper of dry-aged rib steaks, black-eyed peas and haricots verts. Then cookies.

2002 Baumard Savennieres "Clos du Papillon"

1995 Chateau Sociando-Mallet Haut-Medoc

1995 Jaboulet Hermitage la Chapelle

1986 Dow's Quinta do Bomfim

1996 Egly-Ouriet Champagne

...and a generously gifted-to-me bottle of Comte Georges de Vogue marc de bourgogne.

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2003 Primitivo di Salento "Sharazad" Milleuna (almost Amarone-like: rich, spicy, luscious, thick)

2003 Rosso di Montalcino Collimattoni (Incredibly huge rosso, late harvest overtones, lush, spicy, full)

2003 Barbera d'Alba Hillberg

2004 Gewurztraminer "Nussbaumer" Cantina di Tramin, Alto Adige

2000 Gravner Ribolla Gialla

2002 "Primofiore" Quintarelli (Valpolicella blend)

1999 Brunello di Montalcino Poggio di Sotto (plummy, spicy, rich, very smooth, in the bloom of youth, one of the 3 best 99 Brunello I have tasted)

1997 Barolo "Ginnestra" Paolo Conterno (huge, coffe and spice nose, violets, roses, ripe purple and black fruit, early mature)

1999 Amarone "Pergole Vece" Le Salette (smooth, rich, huge, spicy, lush)

Note, we were pouring 2 wine flights so we had an incredible array of wines open last night)

Dinner: Crostini of cured Foie Gras, house cured duck breast, foie gras with blackberry sauce, lobster & guanciale pasta, rib eye with erborinati (cave aged blue) . Johnny outdid himself!

Thanks to those here and all our friends and customers who made 2005 such an exciting year. We hope you have a great, happy and healthy 2006!

Edited by deangold
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How was the Gravner?

On its own, a little rough and sharp. We had it with the foie gras crostini as well as a baccala crostini. The richness of the foie and the salty sharpness of tthe baccala brought out different aspects of the wine but both dishes took away the sharpness. With the foie, it was softer with more of a muscatty overtone. With the bacala, it was all spice and a little buttery/yeasty. All in all, Gravner remains one of my true wine heros. His wines stand apart!

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Last night we celebrated the end of a very rough (for us) year with a little bubbly and some nice crustaceans:

Inflorescence Champagne Blanc De Noirs Brut

Steamed live Dungeness Crabs (from the Great Wall)

Steamed artichokes

(together fondly referred to as the drawn butter course)

Garlic Naan

Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 1999

Another glass of the 1971er Forster Jesuitengarten TBA

Here's to a very happy 2006 for all of us!

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Happy New Year, dr family! It's been a great year. [btw, I've been catching up on the last few days' posting. It seems there a lot going on--breasts, rant, deleted posting, threats, cancellations, yikes!]

I'm on a roll! My extended family came to my house for the New Year meal. These people must really love me, since my house is only partially renovated and they've been hanging out here more than 24 hours! Here's what I prepared:

New Year's Day Dinner

pork tenderloin

black-eyed peas and rice

greens

candied sweet potatoes

corn bread

crab legs

etc

Breakfast (Today)

apple cinnamon pancakes

homemade sausage (delicious!)

scrambled eggs

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Traditionally I've made Polish stuffed cabbage (golabki) for New Year's. It's not necessarily a Polish good luck food (actually herring is and....nyet) but it felt like a good dish to start the year off with. This year, I've made a traditional Italian dish inspired soup- lentils with kielbasa. It's a take on cotechino con lenticchie, or sausage over lentils. It combines Mr. MV's Italian heritage and my Polish roots. The green round lentils symbolize money while the sausage symbolizes abundance with it's fat. Recipe here.

What are your traditional dishes for New Year's?

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I usually do black-eyed peas in some form and some kind of pork. There were a couple of years where I accumulated lists of all the good luck foods and tried to hit all of them, but that got tired pretty fast. Sometimes I'll add fish to the menu (oyster stew most often).

I think this New Year's Day I'll do a salad I had been making a while back with black-eyed peas, iceberg lettuce, red cabbage, red onion, green beans, carrots, and a heavy-on-the-vinegar vinaigrette. For a main course, I'll probably do a bourbon-marinated pork tenderloin, with some kind of rice.

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Pork and sauerkraut for us. Usually pork roast and roasted kraut (drained, mixed with mustard, brown sugar and a liquid of your choice. Mom used apple juice. I've been experimenting myself. Easy to roast some root veggies at the same time. Very traditional in German families. I grew up on a street nicknamed "sauerkraut hill" in Ohio.

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When I was growing up, my mostly German mother would make sauerbraten, potato pancakes, and fried noodles for New Year's. Azami and I haven't made a tradition beyond "something special" in our ten years of marriage. This year, I'll be making some dishes from the range of osechi ryouri, or traditional Japanese New Year's foods, but I haven't decided which ones.

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Grover and I do Duk Mandu Guk or thinly sliced rice cakes with mandu soup. The rice cakes are cut at a slight angle and represent money or wealth for the coming year.

To me this soup on new years morning is one of the great korean food traditions. Made the Mandoo this afternoon. I just cannot get up early enough in the morning to make mandoo anymore. Sleeping in has become almost as good of a tradition.

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Last night, we had soba, as is traditional on NYE in Japan. It's theorized that you eat soba on NYE because soba is long, so it brings good fortune and longevity.

Today, I've got some kuromame (sweetened black beans) (for health) and maki konbu (kelp rolls) (for pleasure or happiness) on the stove/in the rice cooker. There's some other stuff, too. Photos later!

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Happy New Year, guys!

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Hopping John AND cabbage (two separate dishes). The black eyed peas are for coins, the cabbage is for folding money.

I take these things seriously, attributing my new job to our first serious observation of Chinese New Year.

Be there. Aloha.

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Ozoni! How is it made where you are living Xochitl10?
According to my local friends, ozouni here involves a clear soup base with chicken, daikon, carrot, salmon roe, mochi, and Japanese parsley -- possibly other things if you want. I forgot about the salmon roe while I was shopping, so we didn't have any. :( The mochi is the large white blob toward the bottom of the photo.

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How did you make your ozouni?

I didn't make a huge amount of stuff for New Year's Day, but here's what we had:

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Clockwise from the top left: kuromame (sweetened black beans); iburigakko (smoked pickled daikon radish, an Akita specialty that a friend gave us); Japanese olives (a gift from the same friend); and salt-grilled yellowtail.

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Clockwise from the left: konbumaki (simmered kelp rolls tied with gourd strips); kamaboko (fish paste; red and white are auspicious colors for the new year); tazukuri (candied sardines; I bought these); and rice bran pickled daikon.

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Clockwise from left: another look at the kamaboko; kinpira gobou (simmered burdock root and carrot); ringo kinton (mashed sweet potatoes and apples); another look at the tazukuri.

Some of these things aren't traditional (like the iburigakko and the olives), but we put them out because they were delicious gifts.

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Both boys are graduating in 2010, so I want to start off the new year right.

This year, not just cabbage but also collards (for folding money in the New Year), not just Hoppin John but also lentils (for coins).

"They say" that one should not eat chicken or turkey on New Year's Day, or you will be scratching for your living all year. Wonder if that applies to duck?

Some say that one should eat pork, because it is rich, for richness in the New Year.

Others say one should eat fish, especially herring.

I am going to set our table with every lucky food we can think of, and hope that 2010 is a new year with good luck for all.

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Others say one should eat fish, especially herring.

Grandpa ate pickled herring for Jewish new year *and* New Year's Eve. I still can't stand the stuff, but I'm always vaguely tempted to break it out for luck's sake.

Grandpa was also extraordinarily superstitious: women -- even married -- could never take the last piece of anything, or risk being the "old maid." Maybe I should give up on feeling like herring is lucky.

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Our New Year's Eve tradition is a rustic Alsatian specialty, Choucroute Garnie.

Sauerkraut spiced with juniper and allspice berries, whole cloves, peppercorns,

Baked with sliced kielbasa, bauernwurst, browned bratwurst, bacon, onions and apples sauted in the bacon fat, broth from smoked ham hocks, and Alsatian Pinot Blanc

Served with boiled red potatoes dipped in chopped parsley

Horseradish, various spicy mustards

Kielbasa from Kielbasa Factory, Rockville

Bauernwurst and bratwurst brought from Germany by our son and daughter-in-law -- these look and smell SO good!

Bacon is hickory-smoked from D'Artagnan

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Fixed it. Absolutely no criticism implied (I've done similar) but it is against the rules.

Seriously? :lol: That's news to me and my German daughter-in-law would be horrifed to know that she's a *criminal*. This is not the first time she's brought us food. Well, that wurst is gonna taste even better! :angry:

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Grandpa ate pickled herring for Jewish new year *and* New Year's Eve. I still can't stand the stuff, but I'm always vaguely tempted to break it out for luck's sake.

Grandpa was also extraordinarily superstitious: women -- even married -- could never take the last piece of anything, or risk being the "old maid." Maybe I should give up on feeling like herring is lucky.

Whole Foods in Old Town was sold out of pickled herring, although they did still have two containers of herring in cream sauce. I thought about it -- never had anything like that before -- and decided to have kipper snacks, instead. I know I like kipper snacks, which are canned smoked herring fillets.

Although, I have to say, given that kipper snacks are one of the things that blue collar workers eat out on job sites (with a sleeve of saltine crackers), maybe eating them makes you lucky, but rich?

And an ounce of caviar. Caviar counts as fish, right? Also something round (proxy for coins). (Considering the price I might have reversed the causality -- it may not be that eating caviar make you rich, you have to be rich to eat it?)

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Tomorrow morning, we're getting up early to eat clementines and chikuwa (fish paste shaped around a bamboo skewer and grilled), drink a lot of sake, and play some gin (since I don't think you can play mahjong with only two people) in tribute to NYD in Japan (or at least, in our old 'hood). Tomorrow afternoon, we'll have snacks and I'm trying my hand at making pizza for the first time. Rather by happenstance, I planned to make one white and one red, which are auspicious colors in Japan and the colors of many foods traditionally eaten at New Year's.

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Serendipity. A late lunch of leftovers included two on the lists of good-luck foods:

  • pork: leftover baked ham from Cedarbrook, quickly pan-fried and amazingly delicious
  • greens: baby, mixed, unintentionally Southern-style since braised much longer than necessary

(the latter stirred into mashed golden turnip and potato as stamppot)

During a night spent in a heretofore unexplored hippy neighborhood drumming, yes, drumming, an array of beans in dips, stews and other food co-op style-vegetarian dishes. Drummer from Ghana in knit cap responded to call of young woman from Hyattsville with curly hair, glass earrings and muscles. Harmonium. Brass bowls. Sitar. Bass guitar. Cow bell. Taco chips. Spinach. Red wine.

Home again: a bowl of zuppa di ceci w tomatoes, rosemary and pasta.

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I treated myself to a spree at Wegman's the other afternoon. After appetizers of olives and Beemster X.O., last night's dinner was one third of a lovely boneless ribeye, served with bernaise sauce, an improvised (and fortunately successful) sweet potato souffle, and green beans. Dessert was a small slice of one of those little chocolate cakes they have in their bakery.

This yankee girl knows better than to not take advantage of anything that may create positive vibes, so I made a batch of Hoppin' John based loosely on Emeril's recipe last night that will be consumed with collard greens later today. I was very happy to find real country ham in the deli section for the "seasoning meat", and threw four Thai chilies in as well as a tiny splash of white basalmic vinegar. My test tastings last night were very gratifying.

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I've got a Dutch oven full of Hoppin' John simmering. Instead of serving it with rice and greens, I'm making penne with broccoli, garlic, and sardines to accompany. I've got a few lamb merguez sausages, which I'm going to split between serving in the Hoppin' John and using in appetizer portions as mini hotdogs (in homemade sweet potato rolls). There's plenty of Christmas ham (and ham bone) in the Hoppin' John, so I've got the pork and fish covered, as well as the black-eyed peas.

We're also having salad and cheese and crackers.

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New Year's Day open house brunch:

orange juice

grapefruit juice

homemade granola

Greek style yogurt

pear cardamom coffee cake

pecan sticky buns (recipe from Baking with Julia)

pineapple, blueberries, raspberries

bacon and Gruyere galette

bacon

breakfast link sausages

mushrooms a la greque

fennel a la greque

ricotta blintzes with maple syrup

green lentil salad topped with fried eggs

baked French toast

quiche Lorraine

pumpernickel spread with cream cheese-creme fraiche and topped with asparagus

smoked salmon

Hungarian goulash with spaetzle for those who stayed long enough for dinner

don't know if there was anything lucky or traditional in there, but it sure was fun.

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I've got a Dutch oven full of Hoppin' John simmering. Instead of serving it with rice and greens,

Are you using the name "Hoppin' John" to indicate a dish that doesn't include rice? I've never heard of that dish.

I made a braised pork shoulder "a la Goulash" -- that is, braised with a large quantity of chopped onion, and with paprika and caraway seed in the liquid. Served with sauerkraut (Bubbies brand, the best) long-simmered with onion, juniper berries, and some chopped, rendered guanciale (and its rendered fat). Buttered boiled potatoes. Lucien Albrecht Crémant d'Alsace Rosé Brut made an excellent accompaniment.

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Are you using the name "Hoppin' John" to indicate a dish that doesn't include rice? I've never heard of that dish.

My plans started out including rice, but when I added the pasta dish to the menu I decided not to have rice with the Hoppin' John. Rice and pasta in one meal seemed like too much. I've got plenty left, though, and there will be rice served with the leftovers.
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My plans started out including rice, but when I added the pasta dish to the menu I decided not to have rice with the Hoppin' John. Rice and pasta in one meal seemed like too much. I've got plenty left, though, and there will be rice served with the leftovers.

So you're using "hoppin' john" as a name for a dish of black-eyed peas? The name traditionally means a dish of black-eyed peas and rice, not a dish of black-eyed peas that may be served with a rice accompaniment.
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So you're using "hoppin' john" as a name for a dish of black-eyed peas? The name traditionally means a dish of black-eyed peas and rice, not a dish of black-eyed peas that may be served with a rice accompaniment.

My grandmother did the same thing. Served what she called "Hoppin' John", but was really just black eyed peas stewed with bacon.

She said it did not matter what you called it, we needed to eat it, lest good fortune allude us in the New Year. I always found her to be a very wise woman.

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So you're using "hoppin' john" as a name for a dish of black-eyed peas? The name traditionally means a dish of black-eyed peas and rice, not a dish of black-eyed peas that may be served with a rice accompaniment.

The recipe I have made most often is one from Bert Greene, which calls for brown rice to be added to the liquid and cooked in with everything else. This time, I looked up other recipes, which (including one from Justin Wilson) called for it to be served over rice that's cooked separately. I fully intended to add rice to the dish (though I hadn't decided whether to cook it in with everything or make it separately) when I decided that the broccoli and sardines I needed to use up would be best utilized in a penne recipe I found. Omitted the rice from the other dish as a consequence of that decision.

I still think of it as Hoppin' John because that's what I set out to make--black-eyed peas and ham with rice added later. I also consider it Hoppin' John even though I added ground veal to it (based on a recipe from an elderly man I know in Alabama who adds ground beef to his) and lamb merguez sausages I needed to use (added some heat but not traditional). Is it Hoppin' John if the leftovers are served over rice or is it too impure by then?

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Is it Hoppin' John if the leftovers are served over rice or is it too impure by then?

I suppose it really doesn't matter if it's delicious. I get terminologically Stalinist sometimes, as with what is Georgetown and what is Spring Valley, etc. I intended no censure.
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I suppose it really doesn't matter if it's delicious. I get terminologically Stalinist sometimes, as with what is Georgetown and what is Spring Valley, etc. I intended no censure.

Eh. My mother was from Georgia and insisted that we eat black-eyed peas every New Year's Day. No rice involved. Plus, we had to leave some on our plates for "good luck." It was the only time that wasting food was considered a good thing. I haven't continued the tradition and my luck seems to be the same as always. Dame Edna never demands black-eyed peas on any occasion; could be that he's from Long Island. :angry:
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